Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995  Speaker, I am pleased to rise to support the motion proposed by the government House leader in respect of the Senate amendments to Bill C-69. The motion before the House accepts one of the amendments proposed by the Senate to this bill and rejects the other amendments proposed. I am pleased to support the motion before the House.

Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995  moved: That a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House agrees to amendment number 4( a ) made by the Senate to Bill C-69, an act to provide for the establishment of electoral boundary commissions and the readjustment of electoral boundaries, and this House disagrees with amendments numbers 1, 2, 3, 4( b ), 4( c ), 5 and 6 for the following reasons: The bill was, in accordance with the new procedures of this House, prepared by a committee of the House.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  It is an important issue and one of the reasons I got into politics. It is backed up in the Reform Party by a guarantee that if we do not do what we say, we will give the electors the opportunity and the ability to fire the MP or those MPs. That is a guarantee the Liberals would not understand.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  It would be a pleasure to know that is happening, but the benefits have not reached our communities. I remember when I was campaigning in 1993 I promised that a Reform government would take no money out of health care. Today we are in a position where we will be putting money back into health care and education to restore them and repair the damage done by this Liberal government.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act  This is what I concluded during the course of our discussions. We met with about 16 or 17 senators and congressmen from the United States. They are not free traders. They are not people who respect international agreements if the international agreements and free trade threaten their industries or jobs in their country or threaten markets which they have captured during the course of doing business.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  When the hon. member for Simcoe Centre pontificates from afar-that is far right by the way-I say to him that he is wrong. The Reform candidate in his riding in the last election sure was singing from a different hymn book on that issue. However, that is not radically different for Reformers to disagree with each other.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  Mr. Speaker, I just saw another Reform Party member who wanted to rise after the previous speaker, so I thought I should rise as well to straighten out a few facts. You may have noticed that the hon. member who just spoke was not altogether objective in his comments and was not altogether fair in the way he described the facts as we know them.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  The Reform Party and the Conservative Party are a little bit different; one is when it is balanced and one is immediate. There are conditions. The situation is there are conditions and some other matters.

Canada Elections Act  Therefore, if my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca had not voted and I knew that he was going to be voting Reform, my supporters would make a point of calling him up and asking him if he needed help to get to the polling station. People are offered rides to get to the polling stations. This type of follow-up occurs.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  In that regard, a concrete measure that could be taken would be to reopen the employment insurance reform to give control of the fund to the people who are paying for it, namely employers and employees. Right now, the situation is somewhat peculiar in that the people who are funding this insurance plan have no control over the way the money is used.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  It is a pretty radical idea, I know, but the government should listen hard to what Canadians are saying about their priorities. If the government listens hard it will come to the same conclusion to which the Reform Party came, which is that Canadians want smaller government and a government which focuses on the things that are priorities for Canadians. They want a balanced budget. They want to run surpluses and they want to reinvest in those things which are priorities.

Canada Elections Act  The great virtue of public funding is that it forces political parties to increase decentralization of their structure, to return to their roots and to promote genuine interaction between the leaders and the membership. It is for these reasons that public funding should have been included in this electoral reform.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997  The Minister of Finance could have taken advantage of the present favourable conditions to lower UI premium rates by three or four times as much in order to really create jobs while spending the billions of dollars in the UI fund to increase the protection lost in the wake of the employment insurance reform. The Minister of Finance could also have taken advantage of those three and a half years in his portfolio to undertake a real reform of corporate and personal taxation, as the Bloc Québécois has been calling for since the beginning.

Oceans Act  Speaker, I was a bit surprised that the government member spoke to our motions in this group before the Reform Party had spoken, but I am glad he did. I am very pleased to hear the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra thinks we should not consult with provinces like British Columbia that he is from.

Criminal Code  Therefore we will not be taking this to the people in this forthcoming election, we are taking it to them now and we are showing very clearly that we are prepared to support good legislation but will not support legislation like the Bloc does that allows violent offenders to walk free. We will not support that. A Reform government will repeal that bill and we will plug the hole that allows the courts in this land to send rapists back on the street after they destroyed the lives of their victims. When we look at this bill and we look at the whole gamut of the justice system and where we have arrived, the justice minister has become so partisan in his answers today that I saw no reason to go any further.